TWCL

[alexlklee]

I bet you would like this. Occupy Wall Street -- "Even Money is Protesting".

The picture is posted on http://www.shanshannie.com/1/category/all/1.html

[Casual Notice]

Seriously? You think OWS is a protest?

It looks like Burning Man with crappier music and worse planning.
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What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
S*P*Q*R

[smbhax.com]

Damn hippies.
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[Casual Notice]

Pffft...they wish they were hippies. Hippies at least had something to say (when they were coherent). These idiots aren't even sure why they're camped out where they are. Their only "message" is "Stop being so rich", meanwhile, they're slouching around in a private park (coincidentally owned by a company that just got a huge federal grant that it didn't need) preventing honest people from getting to work on time (not the 1% they seem to hate so much...normal people working for an average salary) and strewing a mess about themselves as they destroy property in nearby small businesses and rob each other blind (and let's not forget the multiple sexual assaults that have been recorded but not reported to the police).

They aren't unemployed families looking for work like the Hoovertowns, nor are they disenfranchised veterans looking for compensation for their sacrifices in a meatgrinder war like the Bonus Marchers. They're not even idealistic young people with valid concerns like the actual hippies.

Most of them are just spoiled brats who never had to face even mild hardship in their lives, frustrated that their overpriced college education didn't provide them with a "job" slouching around and dabbling in their interests. The few that aren't overindulged teenagers are paid professional protestors hired to provide copy and photo-ops for the media.

They're a joke, and the funniest skit they perform is the one where they complain about corrupt money corrupting a corrupt government and then demand more government to control the corruption (if you can't see the implicit dichotomy of demanding more government to combat government corruption, then perhaps you should be studying history instead of slouching around other people's greenspaces).

So, like I said, not "Damn hippies." Just more whining.
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What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
S*P*Q*R

[WriterWhoCantDraw]

The problem is, good points are being lost in a sea of asshattery and "it's what all the cool kids are doing". Keep it on point. Point out that 1% of the people control 90% of the wealth, yes, but you need more.

For instance, ask why the poor and middle class are being asked to shoulder the entire burden of debt reduction. The rich are making record profits, yet refuse to pay even 1% more in taxes. What makes them such special little snowflakes? The economy didn't collapse in the 50's/early 60's when the rich were paying 90% in taxes, so why can't they pay 40% now? A reasonable question, lost in the noise. This is how you refute the corporate propaganda machine, not by marching around all "RAR, RICH PEEPLES IZ TEH SUXXORS".

Don't ask for more entitlements, either. Not the time or the place, until this debt gets under control. It just hurts your cause, or at least hurts what SHOULD be your cause. Focus, people. At most, ask why programs must be cut that benefit the poor, when the rich pay less than half the taxes they did 50 years ago. Debt reduction is still the goal, or should be. Just not on the backs of the middle class and poor.

The shifting tax burden of the last 50 years should be your main focus. Like a laser beam, bitches. Cut out the whining and the pot-smoking and the dicking around and get down to hitting 'em hard with verifiable facts, that a majority of the country can understand and get behind, and you'll win the battle. Otherwise, you'll just be a passing fad.
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[ewomack]

The movement definitely needs direction and a less exclusively theatrical approach. But many movements start out as a rag-tag outing such as this and grow into something larger. New coherent social movements rarely appear out of nowhere.

Changing the system has become a nearly impossible task these days. But they have a message that at least resonates with many people. Whether they will actually accomplish anything, I have no idea.
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Ed Womack

[smbhax.com]

Casual Notice wrote:

Pffft...they wish they were hippies.

I know! Pretty sad when we've reached the point where we can hold up hippies as models to aspire to for social change, at least compared to what society seems to be generating now. =P
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[Tskingdom]

(Don't get mad, this is merely a Note Self post)
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Because some things are for nice people and some things are for nice people with a taste for occasional sightseeing in a Land of Disgust and Sick. http://tskingdom.com/

[smbhax.com]

I don't see why that's such a bad thing. ;)
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[Casual Notice]

I get it, see it's funny because everyone who expresses an opinion on the internet is just sitting on their asses in front of a computer all day and not spending any time actually actively helping their community. See because the only way to effect change in society is to camp out in public and private greenspaces while making vague, self-contradictory demands.
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What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
S*P*Q*R

[Tskingdom]

I can imagine few ways to make actual changes, but (as a citizen of a madhouse called European Union* in its current stage) it's better not to get too loud without at least seven proxys. And pretty much agreed that Wall Street circus and its variations here and there will most likely be entirely useless just like being Big Daddy von Besserwisser on internet and I'm still NOT talking about this particular thread.

*Last Friday our Parliament voted to enroll the membership of EU into our Constitution, plus things that basically say Bye bye to the independence (the rest there was left) and official Media seems to be hiding and blurring that incredibly well. All kinds of crap going on which affects to my behaviour it seems. Sorry.
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Because some things are for nice people and some things are for nice people with a taste for occasional sightseeing in a Land of Disgust and Sick. http://tskingdom.com/

[Casual Notice]

Quote:

official Media seems to be hiding and blurring that incredibly well.

That's not really their fault. Every time they try to type the report they end up dissolving into a stream of helpless giggles since everyone knows that economic and military powerhouses like the UK, Germany, and Poland (Poland? Yes, Poland) are only members of the EU when they're in a good mood and remember to send a check in the return envelope that came with the unsolicted package of EU-themed address labels.
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What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
S*P*Q*R

[lexia]

They still protesting?

Well to be honest I did not even hear about them protesting till a few days after they started, and really I did not even know they are still are... And from what little I heard it seems they are not organized so that all makes sense.

[Dutch]

We have a local version happening now in Melbourne, Australia, and I think there's another in Sydney too. The local council let them camp out for a week in the middle of the city if they left by 9am Friday morning. When they didn't, the police moved in and moved them on their way.

So the police are now the bad guys in their eyes, and they plan next week to sit in the Melbourne gardens instead to continue their protest.

What I found really funny about it all is the way the common Australian seems to have used the mildly annoying but generally pointless and harmless 'protest' sit in for their own purposes!

It seems that a good percentage of the 'protesters' camping out in the middle of the city were actually people coming down for the weekend or through the week who were just joining in at night so they didn't have to book into hotels!
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[citronrobotlord]

I've been covering the occupy movement here in NS and, i dunno about the rest of the world but it seams pretty coherent from where I'm standing.

the reason they don't have a "solid goal" is simple. their goal is to take action to improve our world instead of waiting for elected men who are, according to most of the protesters, bought off by big money.

So then, you have hundreds of people, each with a slightly different view on the situation, the only way to really get an action plan is to gather everyone together under this common goal and using the democratic process in it's purist form, you slowly, but surely, get people to figure out the best courses of action.

I'm sure there's going to be a point when the plans will have to be voted on, but the hope is that they'll be plans that allow everyone to have at least their basic needs met while protecting the environment and human rights.

the fact that the protest doesn't fit into an ideological or a sensational niche, which in my opinion is the biggest issue when it comes to public opinion of the protest, isn't a bad thing.

North America, at least Canada (since I'm Canadian) hasn't seen true democracy on this scale in a long time. the reason I say that with confidence is that the definition of democracy demands that everyone who wants to be heard has a chance to be heard. in an country sized government that's just not possible, (and not necessarily a bad thing). But it's important, especially when Canadian banks make 16 billion dollars in one year and Canadian unemployment rises steadily. or when, as citizens of Canada we have to constantly be on guard that metered internet billing doesn't get forced onto us despite the operational cost to the internet providers being negligible.

I should blog about all of this once I'm done putting together my short docu about Occupy NS. because there's no way I can justify ranting farther.

anyways, comments? retorts? critique?